-The Hindustan Times Punjab: Having seen my uncle hard at work in a farm and his decision to quit school to till land, I have often felt that popular imagination tends to see Farming as an esoteric profession and food production as something that will somehow magically take care of itself. A young man/woman (who has had secondary education) seems to consider agriculture as far too back-breaking and tedious to be taken...

-The New Indian Express Bangalore: Agricultural technologies can help increase global crop yields by as much as 67 per cent and cut food prices by in half by 2050, according to a new book, ‘Food Security in a World of Natural Resource Scarcity: The Role of Agricultural Technologies.' The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington, has released this book recently. The book cites an increased demand for food due to population and...

-The Hindu Abitha, a Ph.D student at the IISc, has come up with Algiculture, a technique to grow paddy along with an oil-producing algae, helping farmers earn additional income Hyderabad: Good news for paddy farmers! They can now doubly benefit by growing an additional crop without incurring additional cost, apart from contributing to the nation's fuel needs. A student of Ph.D at the Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc), Bangalore, has devised a technique...

-DNA The government's lack of focus on agriculture shows its lopsided priorities. In the coming months, about 1.5 crore farmers who quit agriculture in the past seven years, are likely to trudge back into the villages. In normal circumstances such a massive reverse migration - from the cities back to the villages - would have been a sign of inclusive growth. But economists are taking this U-turn as a sign of...

-The Hindustan Times A "progressive Punjab agriculture summit", scheduled in SAS Nagar from February 16 to 19 is a welcome step. The event comes close on the heels of an earlier summit on industry. Together, agriculture and industry form a strong fulcrum for Punjab's economic growth and prosperity. However, at present, both are in a grip of crisis; and perhaps unable to face the future challenges/opportunities on their own. It calls for...